Today: Delilah Gray failed (no successes) using 1d10 with the World of Darkness nWoD, Chance Die system with a target of 10, rerolling 10s ((4)).

Confusion creased Delilah's brow, but her lips quirked into a small smile. A giggle slipped out. Then a full on peal of belly shaking laughter. One hand clutched her side. The other tried to scrub the grin off her face.

The laugh died down to squeak.

"That's funny. You'll laugh all the way to the bank! And I'd buy that for a dollar!" The puppet chuckled.

"Up and down, up and down, here we go, here we go!" The puppet bounced, taking on a new, joyous animation, clearly roused by the laugh that Delilah exhibited.

Then it cocked its head. "Yippi, yippi, yay!" The puppet spread its arms. "Mr. Clayton! That's me. That's my name, don't wear it out!"

Delilah inched away from the stairs to the corner. If she could edge close enough, then she could see who was handling Mr. Clayton. Maybe there was no one on the other side. Like the hand doorknob. No one would be better than the killer clown.

Delilah inched just close enough to see the arm of a kid about her age was pushed into the puppet. The owner's face was shrouded in darkness.



"Nah, nanny poo-poo!" The puppet turned, cutting off Delilah's view of the puppeteer. "No cheating!"

"Besides, this isn't about me. It's about you. You're the one who smoked the Soul Rock, aren't you? Didn't your parents tell you never to do drugs?" The puppet asked, turning the conversation back on Delilah.

Delilah shrank back from the question and rocked on her heels. In her dream, she wore her hair just as she always did for bedtime: one long, loose braid to keep it from tangling. She shrugged one shoulder and tilted her head. Her hands began to coil and twist it out of habit. Her eyes found the floor.

I was hurt. A lot. And medicine to get better's kinda like drugs. So..." She didn't feel like she was winning the wish game. Cheating or not. "So, if I wish'd to go back to before the clown came to warn everybody? Would that be a good one?"

"Hmmmmmmmm" The puppet questioned, the hand coming up to its face. "Hmmmmmm...mmmmmm...hmmmm." It said, head cocking quickly to one said as  if thinking about the question.

"You know what? I'm not sure. I've never smoked Soul Rock, so I don't know. I don't think Bradford has done it either.  What do you think of that!?"

"We were just trying to weasel ourselves into other people's wish-dreams, we never even considered smoking it would be a good idea to learn how the whole thing works!"

"So really, I'm not so sure. But, since this is a dream, and you need an answer. This might work."

Suddenly, there was a loud, cracking sound as something hit the floor. Delilah was vaguely aware of something falling next to her in her peripheral vision. She was on the third step, the puppet's own body was emerging from the end of the side wall.

Whatever had fallen was now clocking its way down to the second step....first step.

A round black ball rolled forward along the floor stopping at the front door of the house right near the stairwell. Once it hit the door it rolled back slowly until it reached the base of the stairs once more.

"It's a Magic Eight-ball!" The puppet yelled in a thin, high and excited voice.

"Hahahaah! Would you look at that! Well, you know what to do, don't you? You fun-loving girl you! I bet you just wish you had one of those in real life. And then you could play all day with your friends during a sleepover. Wouldn't that be grand?" Then it broke out into a small, little jaunty tune.

"Oh what a beautiful morning
Oh what a a beautiful day
I've got a wonderful feeling
Everything is going Delilah's Way!"

Mr. Clayton asked a question and Delilah could barely stammer out an answer. Her ears and face were going red from shame. Drugs were bad and Mr. Clayton and Bradford had never done them. Well, of course the puppet didn't do drugs.

Something dark dropped down beside her and she jumped. An eight ball? She picked it up at the foot of the stairs.

"Um, yeah? Yeah. That's what I want."

"What's the matter!?" The puppet demanded, both puppet arms spread out in hands waving down and forth in total surprise. There was an exclamatory annoyance and disappointment in this gesture. "You've never played with a Magic Eight-ball, Dummy?" It said. "Haha! Get it, Dummy? Yucca! Yucca!"

"You shake it and then you ask a question!"

OOC: Delilah Rolls Occult + Composure with the Following Result - Assume Delilah is completely healed Damage-wise.

0 Successes: Delilah can't help but laugh. Delilah's player decides if  Delilah felt the joke was funny or not. This decision does not affect whether Delilah laughs.

1+ Successes: Delilah smiles.  Delilah's player decides if  Delilah felt the joke was funny or not. This decision does not affect whether Delilah smiles.

Today: Delilah Gray failed (no successes) using 1d10 with the World of Darkness nWoD, Chance Die system with a target of 10, rerolling 10s.  Occult + Composure - Unskilled.

Delilah couldn't help but laugh again. This time, it was sorta funny. It was the setup. And the punchline should be Who are you calling dummy, Dummy? She couldn't say it. Her tongue felt clumsy and dry. The giggling gave way to a cough and she tried to find her voice.

"Yeah? Well...no duh!" That wasn't funny.

She shook the eight ball with her eyes squeezed tight.

"Is wishing to go back and warn everybody a good wish?"

"Well, what's it say!?" The puppet asked, stretching its neck and body out eagerly. But Delilah was too far for it to reach.

Delilah looked down:

The eight ball's fortune floated up and Delilah's heart sank.

"It says, outlook not good," she mumbled. She gave the ball another shake. "Am I gonna have one eye when I go back?"

Delilah had to squint to see the triangle as it made its way up the small circle, inky water slowly giving way to letters.

"Cannot predict now!?" Mr. Clayton yelled in annoyance.

Delilah looked up and saw that the puppet was now appearing from between the spindles of the stairway, introducing himself into Delilah's space over her shoulder.

"That's a useless ball if I've ever seen one!" the puppet complained, the trunk of its body emerging from underneath the stairs.

"Well, what are you gonna do now? You've still got a wish to make, you know?"

Delilah nearly dropped the ball in fright.  She hadn't heard Mr. Clayton, or his handler, move at all. Even worse, his face changed. He would have been a nice puppet if he didn't have angry cat eyes. But now a scowl was carved into his wooden head. She took another step back.

"Then I wish I had my eye back!"

"That's the spirit!" Mr. Clayton said, bobbing up and down, his legs flopping about on the side of the stairs, all useless and knocking against the spindles.

"You made a wish!" He exclaimed happily. His mouth opened and closed in the same, singular fashion. It opened again slowly, as if he too were waiting for what might happen.

Suddenly, there was a loud, deep thumping sound. The sound of something heavy that was moving, or perhaps had been jarred loose from underneath the house. The floor shook slightly, as if something might be falling, or a large footfall from a giant or something heavy had collapsed near Delilah's house.

And then everything went quiet.

"What was that?" Mr. Clayton asked, the glee gone from his voice.

Delilah listened more. Whatever it was, it was clearly coming from the basement. The basement door was closer to the kitchen. Delilah used to go down there and play all of the time.

Delilah reached for the opposite banister. She was never afraid of the basement until now.

"I want to go home! I wish I was home, my real home, with my mom and dad!"

"Wait...You're wishing again? Did you just make a wish? Do you get two wishes? " Mr. Clayton asked, seemingly confused.

Delilah reached for the other bannister and saw the basement door. It was closed, just like it always was. Mom liked to keep the door closed, because she didn't want anyone playing on the stairs.

There was just one thing that was different.

In front of the door, on the ground, about a foot away in the middle of one of the hallway tiles was a shiny quarter. It was heads up. The familiar profile of George Washington caught the glint of the moonlight that was coming through the window.

"What happens next?" Mr. Clayton asked, voice all eager and intense with curiosity.

Delilah looked from the puppet to the door and back. She shook her head. She had no answer for him. The coin on the floor was strange, but the noise in the basement had her attention. Perhaps if she stared hard enough, she could see through the door. When that didn't work, she counted down from ten.

"...three...two...one...one and one half...one and one quarter...zero."

Her stomach felt cold and icky. Heads up pennies were good luck. Maybe a heads up quarter was twenty-five times better.

She tiptoed towards the basement.

The basement door was closed as Delilah made her way off of the stairs and towards it.  She stopped in front of the quarter and noted that the sound from the basement was gone.

It was noticeably warmer next to the door and Delilah could see through the seams and edges that lined its rectangular frame that the basement light was on. It reminded her of a typical Saturday morning in the winter, when Delilah and her sister would wake up early before Mom and Dad, and head down into the basement to play.

One of Delilah's toes nudged the quarter. She leaned forward and strained to hear whatever had been moving around downstairs. Nothing now.

She swabbed her eyes and nose, then faced Mr. Clayton. "That's gonna be the wish down there, right? I'm gonna go get it." Honestly, she would rather the wish came to her out in the open where she could see. If it really was a good thing in the basement, why was it hiding like a nasty trick?

Still, it was always easier for Delilah to do something --or at least try-- after she'd declared her intentions. Once said, you had to follow through or else you were a windbag. Daddy always said so.

She picked up the quarter and clutched it tight in her fist. The door was very warm when she turned the knob.

Delilah heard Mr. Clayton say something like he hoped that it would be the wish when she got downstairs. But the dummy's voice faded away as open doorway faced her with all of its darkness.

True, there had been light creeping through the seams of the door frame before, but now there was nothing but stark darkness which engulfed stairwell leading downwards.

There was a strange rhythmic sound of rattles and a deeper drumming of batons that was building. It was coming from somewhere in the far recesses of the dark basement.

As Delilah looked down the stairwell, she could see creeping, gray mist gathering.

Delilah wondered if Mr. Clayton, or Bradford really, meant it. She looked back, but he was far away somehow. Another circus trick.

Down she went. She thought her steps would be muffled by the noise, but she did not feel stealthy at all. Her heart threatened to join the drumline and beat right through her chest.

She counted five steps down, then shouted into the gloom. "Hey! Who's down here?"

Her voice was loud, but her palms were sweaty. She rubbed the quarter with her thumbs.

Delilah slowly crept down the stairs. The fog and smoke dissipated as she did so and eventually the drumming died down to an omnipresent background noise.

Almost instantly as her foot hit the solid cement of the basement floor, there was a sound and a bright light to her left...

A Carnival machine lit up....



It was some kind of quarter-run wish machine. Delilah somehow recognized it from somewhere. A cartoon. Or a movie. Or maybe a conversation overheard from older kids.

No one answered. Delilah held her breath and crept down the last steps. Something lit up and she whirled to her left. It was the carnival machine from the snow fort! Last time she saw it, she thought she was in a dream. This time she knew it was a sort of dream, that purple drug smoke dream, but she was still on edge. Clowns or spiders or clown spiders might be waiting in the mist. Zoltar's eyes were glowing, but the lights from the game cabinet weren't enough to see around the room.

Clayton sand the eight ball warned her against wishing for her friends and family. Was that really good advice or were they all in cahoots? And what about her real self outside of the dream? Right now she was fine, but would she be all crippled when she woke up? What about Mark? Was he still lost? He might be a pig forever. Other faces came to mind. Josh and John covered by spiders. Hannah and Sammy frozen in the snow. Roger's final scream. The dark-haired boy standing by watching. The clown carving out noses with glee. That pig-beast and his oily, smarmy voice. His pack of traitor slaves. She ought to wish them all dead! But if they were all dead, then what about Jody?

Delilah rocked on her heels and toes. She held the quarter up to her lips and whispered with her eyes shut tight.


She shoved the quarter into the slot.

OOC: Delilah Joins thread

Delilah: The Blinding Light - Open Wide!